Well, the phone rang at work at around 2:30pm on 8-19-98. "Hello, can I speak to Dave, please?" came the austere voice on the other end. "This is Dave," I said. "David who?" he asked. I gave him my last name. "Oh," he chuckled, "just the man I'm looking for!"
"Dave," he said, "This is Ronald Rockney from Chick Publications." I was speechless. "No way," I said, thinking it a joke. "Oh, yes way!" he said. "Dave, I'm sure you'd agree with me that your employer wouldn't be too happy if they found out that you were using one of their computers to illegally store 154 copyrighted images." Now what was I thinking here? I was thinking "Gee, what a bastard! He's blackmailing me!" Of course, I cound't say much because fellow employees were in the room, and this kind of business is not supposed to take place when we're on call, answering phones. "Well, it's not REALLY their computer," I said, remembering how the computer in question was something I put together from spare parts. Yeah, he had me. I tried to blow him off by telling him that this number was not an appropriate number to call me at, since I had to keep lines open for actual help calls. "I need you to take care of this situation as soon as possible," he said. "I'll get to it right away!" I said with great enthusiasm. "Make sure it's done by tomorrow morning, please," He added. Then I hung up.
Undaunted by this, I immediately called one of my friends, and he set up a space for me on another server. I mailed him the pics, edited the links, and deleted the files from the work server. Yeah, it probably wasn't a good idea to use the network at work for my private jokes. But now that my buddies have set up spaces on other accounts, I'm in the clear for now. But what rocks on that Rockney guy! What he did was something I occaisionally do to friends of mine to pull jokes off on them at work! I gotta hand it to him -- he plays hard ball!